This invention relates to an electronic document circulating system and more particularly to an electronic document circulating system utilizing a communication management system and a file sharing system in a network system.
Heretofore, as the electronic document circulating system can utilize any document, a circular route or path of a document is defined in order of duties such as xe2x80x9cpreparationxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cexaminationxe2x80x9d, and xe2x80x9capprovalxe2x80x9d and a plurality of users who perform operations corresponding to the xe2x80x9cpreparationxe2x80x9d, the xe2x80x9cexamination and the xe2x80x9capprovalxe2x80x9d are previously defined in a duty table separately from the definition of the circular route. For example, JP-A-2-278458 discloses an electronic document circulating system in which when a document is to be transmitted to a user who performs an operation corresponding to the xe2x80x9cexaminationxe2x80x9d, a transmitting person or a transmitter changes a designation of a user at a transmission destination if necessary on the basis of a list of users at circular destinations automatically determined in accordance with a previously defined decision rule of circular destination and the user then responds to a system to thereby complete the transmission of the document to the user. The decision rule of circular destination is information capable of changing the designation of the user at the circular destination in accordance with an amount of money for a contract in the document and of deciding a user having an identifier in the duty table coincident with a kind of the document and a preparing person""s post as a user at a circular destination.
The prior art does not consider the case where the transmitter is not required to confirm the designation of the user at a transmission destination upon transmission of a document particularly, the case where there is no necessity that the user at a transmission destination is uniquely limited and the like as in the case where any user may be applied as far as the user at the transmission destination is a user who performs the process corresponding to the same duty. For example, it is assumed that the assessment work of contract that several thousands of contract documents must be assessed in a day is performed smoothly. In this case, if an amount of contract documents assessable by one person in a day is assumed to be several hundreds of cases, ten persons who have the equal power and can perform the equal assessment are required. In this case, the transmitter who has prepared the contract document to be assessed by the assessment person is not required to confirm who is an assessment person at the transmission destination of the contract document. In the prior art, however, the transmitter had to assign the assessment work to ten persons in accordance with the number described in the document so that the user at the circular destination could decide uniquely by using the decision rule of circular destination. Accordingly, there was a problem that it took time to prepare such a decision rule of circular destination and the transmitter had to confirm the designation of the user at the transmission destination unnecessarily.
Further, when the transmitter changed the designation of the user at the transmission designation, the transmitter could not understood the allocation and the burden to the user at the transmission destination of the transmitted documents. Further, there was a problem that when the transmitter wanted to transmit the document again to the user at the transmission destination who took charge of treatment of the document before, the transmitter had to change the designation of the user at the transmission destination after confirmation of the user""s history indicating whether the user made the treatment or not.
Further, when the transmitter was to consult with another user who was not contained in the circular list during circulation of a document, it was necessary to perform the complicated designation that the user to be consulted was inserted into a list of the transmission destination of the document and the transmitter himself was inserted into the list so as to return the document to the transmitter again. In addition, there was a possibility that when the user to be consulted was empowered to change the transmission destination in the circular list, the designation was changed so that the transmitted document was not returned to the transmitter himself.
Furthermore, there was a problem that the transmitter had to necessarily define a proxy in the case where the document could not be treated by reason that the user at the transmission destination was absent.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to solve the above problems by providing an electronic document circulating system capable of attaining simplification of the operation procedure by a transmitting person and facilitation of the temporary circulation of a document.
The electronic document circulating system according to the present invention are characterized as follows:
(1) When a transmitting person does not confirm the designation of a user at a transmission destination upon transmission of a circular document, one specific user at the transmission destination is decided automatically in accordance with previously defined circulation control information.
(2) In the above item (1), one specific user at the transmission destination is decided automatically in accordance with a predetermined selection criterion or a transmission history.
(3) Without confirmation of the designation of the user at the transmission destination by the transmitting person, the circular document transmitted to a role (described later) is transmitted in response to a reception request from any user belonging to the role, to the user issuing the reception request.
(4) When a certain user consults with another user about the circular document, temporary circulation is made to a consulted user. Thereafter, the circulation is returned to the previously defined original circular route and the normal circulation of the circular document is made.
(5) The user at the transmission destination of the circular document is selected properly in accordance with the working state set individually to the role or the user.
[1] In order to achieve the above object, the electronic document circulating system of the present invention for circulating an electronic circular document by means of a plurality of computer terminals interconnected through a network, comprises a circulation control information store unit for previously storing circulation control information for specifying a circular route of the circular document, a role definition information store unit for storing role definition information for defining a role for managing the circular document transmitted to any of equal users, and a circulation control unit for circulating a designated circular document in accordance with the circular route on the basis of contents of the circulation control information store unit and the role definition information store unit.
[2] In the above item [1], when the circular document has been transmitted to a certain role, the circulation control unit transmits the circular document to a specific user selected from the role on the basis of a predetermined selection criterion of the user at the transmission destination.
[3] In the above item [1], when the circular document has been transmitted to a role from a user who does not belong to the role or when an unprocessed circular document has been transmitted to a role from a user belonging to the role, the circulation control unit informs all users belonging to the role of the incoming of the circular document. The circulation control unit transmits the circular document in response to a reception request of the circular document from any user belonging to the role, to the user.
[4] In any of the above items [1] to [3], there is further provided a temporary circulation control information store unit for storing temporary circulation control information for specifying a temporary circular route. When the temporary circular route is designated during circulation of the circular document, the circulation control unit circulates the circular document in accordance with the temporary circular route on the basis of contents of the temporary circulation control information store unit and the role definition information store unit. Thereafter, the circulation control unit circulates the circular document in accordance with the original circular route on the basis of contents of the circulation control information store unit and the role definition information store unit.
(1) In the electronic document circulating system of the present invention, by designating the role as the transmission destination, the transmitting person of the document is not required to confirm or modify the designation of a specific user at the transmission destination, so that the operation procedure of the transmitting person concerning the transmission of the document can be simplified.
(2) In the above item (1), the circulation control unit can designate an equal user at the transmission destination belonging to the role so that the allocation rate or burden defined by the predetermined selection criterion of the user at the transmission destination is attained. Consequently, the operation procedure of the transmitting person relative to the transmission of the document can be simplified and the optimum of the whole processing efficiency including the circulation of the document can be attained.
(3) In the above item (1), the circulation control unit enables each user belonging to a role to select any document in accordance with the user""s own ability or burden from the documents transmitted to the role. Consequently, simplification of the operation procedure of the transmitting person relative to the transmission of the document and the optimum of the whole processing efficiency including the circulation of the document can be attained.
(4) In any of the above items (1) to (3), with the temporary circulation control information store unit for storing temporary circulation control information for specifying a temporary circular route, the temporary circular route is designated without modification of the original circular route and the circular document is transmitted to any user. After consultation or questions and answers to the user, the circular document can be returned to the original circular route exactly and accordingly the processing quality can be improved without reduction of the whole processing efficiency including the circulation of the document.